Basically I like the show, but there is an ENORMOUS bias in the writing. It is well acted and the characters are good, but calling it The Left Wing is justified. IMHO it would be a better show if it wasn’t so slanted.
Do you think a Republican would ever take office on that show?
It would go a long way in my mind.
I am a conservative and rationize the show by saying “it’s a show about a President who happens to be liberal, so naturally those policies will be featured. It’s from the West Wing’s perspective”.
I watched the very first episode and found it exactly as lurker described. I realized afterwards that I had better ways of spending my Wednesday nights than arguing with my television.
Trust a Hollywod leftist to over-simplify every single government policy.
While I haven’t watched it religiously, I did catch the premiere last week, and it seems as if the President’s chief advisor is a racist bigot (the older guy interrogating the Arab-American, suspected of being a terrorist).
I remember an episode of FAMILY GUY where two teenagers are tripping on acid, and one says to the other, “Dude, I finally understand SPORTS NIGHT, now. It’s so good, it doesn’t HAVE to be funny.”
I don’t have anything to add that the other West Wing haters haven’t said. I’ll just say it’s dangerous to give people the impression that runnign the government can be done as easily as governing by principle.
Heh. An excellent point.
Um, I think it may have been his Roman Catholic upbringing. Just a thought, though; don’t let it get in the way of a good case of bile.
LOVE the West Wing, however did not enjoy the classroom lesson on terrorists and why we are the good guys and they are the bad guys that was presented last week. Now THAT insulted my intelligence and nearly destroyed the credibilty of the rest of the cast. But I can let it slide.
Pres. Bartlett was raised as a devout Catholic and nearly went into the priesthood, so this made perfect sense for the character and situation. Catholic masses were said in Latin until the early '70’s, so he “talked to God” in Latin many times, presumably. He DID feel that by using Latin he could emphasize the point he was making!
I can understand why someone that is not a regular viewer would find this over the top, however…it’s not every day you see a prime time TV character speaking Latin.
To be fair to the character of Leo, they did mention before the show that that episode stands alone, so any character development done in that episode may or may not carry over.
JB… have you ever watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer… if so, you may have noticed that they deliver their dialogue to the same metronome…
I think astro has the show pegged perfectly.
I’ve never seen a second of Buffy …, but I do like to look at the ads (Sara Michelle Somethingorother, right?)
But I think Munch kind of missed my point with his earlier response to me …
I wouldn’t expect an hour long show of um’s and er’s and confusion; it just occured to me that everybody is too perfect.
Snappy comeback? Not a problem. Obscure fact? Got it right here. Display of fortitude? Won’t even waste a beat.
Like I said, I now dig how it’s an artistic liscense that moves the show, but it is very robotic sounding dialog.
Except, of course, how every fifth word is “okay”. That still irks me.
I think most places switched over to the vernacular in the early 60s. I do not remember any Latin masses, and I’m 42, so in NYC at least we had changed by 1965.
I’m not as fussy about The West Wing as most - it’s pretty much a commercial for The Dream Democratic White House, Or What We Think Camelot Might Have Been Like - but to compare it to “The Practice” is insulting. “The Practice” is a staggeringly bad show. I can’t believe it hasn’t been laughed off TV.
Aside from the points already made about his Catholic upbringing and near-entry into the priesthood, keep in mind that President Bartlett is a serious geek when it comes to classical language. In one episode, someone gave him a gift of a copy of the US Constitution translated into Latin. In another, he went Christmas shopping in an antique bookstore and was drooling over classical literature (to everyone’s exasperation). I thought it was perfectly within character for him to start ranting away at God in Latin.
Dr. J